


Blue Violet

by VenusInRetrograde



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Disabled Character, Erwin is a "Cool" Dad, F/F, F/M, Gang member Levi, Gangs, Kid Armin, Kid Mikasa, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin) Has OCD, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin) Swears, Levi Has No Filter, M/M, Mike Still Sniffs Things, Piercings, Probably Definitely Future Sex, So yeah, Tags to be added, Tattoos, Teacher Erwin, Vet Hange, kid Eren, lots of piercings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-06 04:40:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18843838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenusInRetrograde/pseuds/VenusInRetrograde
Summary: After years of being tossed from one foster home to another, Levi drops out of school and joins his Uncle's gang, the ruthless and power-hungry Blue Violets. He doesn't plan on ever leaving. Until one day, years later, he steps out of line and incurs the wrath of Kenny Ackerman himself. With no where to go, Levi is helped by an old acquaintance, and he thinks he just might have made it out of the whole mess alive. But Levi should know better. The Ackerman's don't forgive so easily, and Kenny won't stop until Levi is dead.





	1. Levi

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, I'd just like to say that I've been writing my own little stories for a while now, but never really for this fandom. I love the idea of bad-boy Levi with tattoos, piercings, leather jackets, the works, which is mostly my reason for writing this (shameless, really). There's also the fact that I want to give Erwin the chance to be a sweet little teacher to all the cute kiddos and see what he's like when he's not leading the military.
> 
> I'm still writing as I go, so I may end up coming back and editing some parts in the future (just a heads up). My main reason for posting now is to hopefully give myself the motivation to write more.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy! Please comment and let me know what you think :)

Levi never really wanted to join a gang. Fuck— _who did_? It wasn’t like he went to preschool as a kid, wiggled on chubby little legs straight up to the teacher and said, “my uncle Kenny has half the people in this city by the ‘nads and I want to be just like him when I grow up!”

As if. He would’ve been far happier as some broke college student, working two jobs to make ends meet, or hell, maybe even as an employee at that shitty coffee place with the green aprons. His mom probably wanted him to be a doctor or a police officer, not that he can remember anymore, and he’s sure he probably had some grand ideas too, before she died and it all seemed pointless.

But being in the gang was easier. Better than high school with the stupid teachers who wanted him to express himself but never liked how he did it, and far better than living under some random family’s roof and waiting for them to get tired and ship him off to the next Tom and Sherry with little Billy. It was a taste of freedom in a controlled, regulated environment. A militant anarchy that let him do what he wanted and mind his own business so long as he got his jobs done in between.

It wasn’t a long-term plan, but fuck if it wasn’t the only plan Levi had. It kept food on the table (and in his cat’s bowl), a nice little apartment above his head, and most importantly people out of his life. He wouldn’t be happy like that forever, but he could be content.

But like every other aspect of his life, the world never really gave two fucks about what he wanted.

           

_Chapter 1: Levi_

Levi keeps moving. His side is damp and hot, pain scorching upwards with each jilting step. His chest hurts and his face is sticky with sweat and blood.

_Filthy._

It’s one thing to die: Levi had accepted death as inevitable the moment his mother withered away in front of him while the doctors shook their heads. It’s a completely different thing to die like this; bleeding out in a random alley after trying to help someone get out of harm’s way. He doesn’t even remember the guy’s real name. Some big tall mammoth with the cologne of a sixty-seven-year-old grandfather. Levi warned him, told him to get the fuck out of the way before the shots started flying, and now here is karma two weeks later; being helped by his uncle into an early grave.

After all the work Kenny did to make him the perfect machine, too—and now one little wrench in the gears and he’s dead. Kenny must be absolutely _fuming_ about it. Levi would laugh; he tried to do one good thing in his entire life and is immediately put down for it. But that would waste energy. He swallows thickly and trudges on, each successive footfall harder than the last.

The city is too empty for this time of evening. Not even the police are rolling around in their undercover cars like they normally do. Kenny probably has something to do with that, twisted rich as he is. Probably paid off the whole department for a night just so they could have the fun of hunting Levi down, cornering him like a rabbit in the alleyways and sewers.

It’s just too fucking bad that Levi doesn’t plan on getting caught easy. Or at all, really.

From the empty blocks he can hear the echo of car engines, revving up into a sort of mad frenzy. Levi groans and ducks between two grocery stores, places a hand over his wound and regrets it when pain sparks white hot through him.

Fuck—it’s… there’s a _lot_ of blood. When he puts pressure on it, liquid squelches wetly between his fingers and drips down his arm. Shit. _Shit._ He doesn’t have anything besides his shirt—left his favorite leather jacket at his apartment where there will surely be thirty men waiting to blow him up the moment he sticks his nose through the door. For a moment Levi thinks about stripping off his boots and using one of his socks. They’re thick wool, warm. Could probably slow the bleeding at least for a bit.

But the image of putting something that’s been on his foot straight to an open hole into his body where any little bacteria could swim right in… he’d rather bleed out, thank you very fucking much.

He starts walking again.

For what feels like hours he stumbles around, dodging down alleys, climbing fire escapes, until he’s so tangled up that even he barely knows where he is. Still, every time he thinks he can stop and rest he hears the sound of laughter and taunted calls, guns being cocked. They probably could’ve killed him an hour ago, but Levi isn’t going to complain if the jackasses spend so much time pissing around with each other that he can slip through the cracks.

The world dims, and it takes Levi far too long to realize that the sun is going down and his vision is swimming. He doesn’t think he can go much longer. There’s a few shops that are open, but those would be so easy to walk in and see him, corner him inside. Kill him like a pathetic animal. Instead he waits outside one until he sees the owner take off his apron. It’s late enough and the man looks tired, probably has a family to get home to. Some screaming brat and wife that he avoids by going out to drink with friends.

The only car in the lot is a truck with an open bed and it’s there that Levi runs. He climbs over the back, wills his body not to get blood so obviously all over the paint, and then lays down underneath the window. Levi hates being short, hates when people remind him that he’s short—but it’s moments like these that come in necessary, when he slots himself horizontally against the car and fits. The door of the shop jingles and then clicks as the man locks it. Levi can imagine the man walking over to the car, seeing something dark and oily smeared across the side, and discovering the almost-dead man in the back.

Instead the car beeps twice and the man climbs inside. The rocking of the cab jostles Levi and he has to bite his tongue to stifle a groan from the pain. _Shit._

This is a _horrible_ idea. He doesn’t even know where the man’s going for fuck’s sake. But Levi needs to get out of the city limits, needs to put some distance between himself and the idiots combing the streets for him. This isn’t necessarily a smart way to do it… but it’s the only option Levi can think of that doesn’t end up with a bullet between his eyes.

For a long while Levi lays in the back, holding an arm over his wound and practically swallowing his shirt to muffle himself at each pothole. He doesn’t even realize he’s drifting in and out of consciousness until he opens his eyes and doesn’t recognize where he is, has no idea where the trees have spontaneously sprung up from.

The car isn’t even moving anymore. Which is bad because it means the man might’ve gotten out and seen him. It takes far too long, but Levi manages to bail himself over the edge of the truck bed. His feet hit the ground hard and he has to drop to a knee from the dizziness that swamps him.

His whole body pulses, and now that he’s upright again his wound spurts blood weakly against his fingers. The world, for how dark it is, whitewashes in front of him and he staggers, leaving more bloody handprints on the truck.

 _Fuck_ , he—he would at _least try_ to clean that up if he wasn’t currently using all his energy to stay on his feet.

 And then suddenly light floods from behind him. Levi turns wildly, and there’s a figure in a doorway, silhouetted against a glowing living room. Is he—is he in a neighborhood? The suburbs?

“Who the heck are you?” shouts a woman, and she’s holding something in her hands that Levi can’t quite make out. “I’ve called the police!”

A man joins her at the door, and Levi recognizes the shop keeper. And the shape of a gun in his hands.

_Guess even the ‘burbs aren’t safe from guns._

He doesn’t wait around to see what he’ll do with it; Levi turns and runs down the street, dodging close to the hedges and ducking under trees when the street lights get too bright. Dogs bark at him as he passes, and it’s their noisy, obvious yaps that really cement the fact for Levi that he is in fact in the middle of a neighborhood where he’ll probably die of blood loss and some little kid will find his dead body on their way to school. _Great_.

He wonders until he finds himself at the edge of a chain link fence and he takes only a moment to contemplate before hauling himself over the top. Thank god it’s not too tall. But when he pushes through the bushes on the other side he finds himself in a clearing.

Well… it’s not _ideal_.

He’s in a yard, a school yard if the large building in the center is any indicator. The lights are on but dimmed, a sure answer to the question of whether anyone is still in the building.

At first Levi thinks of turning around, and he looks dubiously back at the fence. But getting over it once was hard enough and… he’s still bleeding. In schools there are first aid kits, nurse’s offices. If he can get in, he can patch himself up and be on his way. Easy as that.

The jog across the yard leaves him gasping. He fetches up against the clear glass doors and peers inside. There’s only a few lights inside, most likely automatic ones that are left on all night to deter people like him trying to get in. He’s only wearing a short sleeve. Levi doesn’t really want to risk busting a window with his arm and risking more bleeding. But he also doesn’t think he can balance long enough to kick in the glass. Picking the lock? Subtlety has never been his strong point… But when he leans heavier on the door he almost hits the floor when it swings open under him. _Fuck_ , its—open?

Who the fuck left a door unlocked at this time of night? But Levi doesn’t have time to care, doesn’t have time to sit there on his knees like a fucking idiot while his side continues to seep. He drags himself up—more blood on the door—and stumbles down the hallways.

The whole building is shaped like a circle and Levi finds himself feeling more and more nauseous as he moves through the building. He’s starting to shake, the sweat on his body cooling and making him feel like he’s in the artic. It’s surely not a good sign. But he’s close to some kind of first aid, which renews his stubbornness to not die like Kenny wants him to.

Levi continues to wonder the halls, cursing the longer it takes him. It’s a goddamn children’s school. How hard can it be to find the nurse’s office? He ducks down a corner hall and comes out in the middle of what must be a craft space, with four classrooms surrounding it. There’s a light on in one of the rooms. At first Levi thinks someone just forgot to turn off a lamp. Surely it happens; people going in and out all day, cleaning staff that’s too busy to notice…

A shadow passes the door.

Fuck.

_Fuck._

Someone definitely didn’t forget. Over the sound of his own rattling breath, Levi picks up murmured voices, one high and one low. This is _not good_. He turns back around and dodges down the hall, cursing when he hears the sound of his blood hitting the linoleum beneath him. He takes a corner just as a door opens behind him.

 _Oh shit, oh shit, oh_ —

Levi goes into a dark open room, bypassing the light switch and stumbling deeper. He can make out the shapes of sinks and the shiny plastic of stall doors. It’s a bathroom. He cringes, imagining all the bacteria nestled in the corners and cracks, but at least it smells like bleach so he knows it’s been cleaned recently. Levi slams into the last stall and suddenly he loses his footing, no longer able to hold himself up.

He slides down the wall, half of his torso still propped up by the plastic stall. It’s dark, but even in the inkiness he can see the black, bloody streaks his body has left against the pale wall. His feet are still sticking out from under the stall but he finds he doesn’t have the energy to move them. All he can do is turn his eyes as he tries to quiet his breathing. He sees the toilet, so low to the ground that an adult could squat and still not touch the rim.

He’s in an elementary school. An elementary school _bathroom_. It’s ironic.

Disgusting, really, that this is how he’s going to die. A bit twisted, if he thinks about the poor kiddy who’s going to stumble across his body in the morning when all they want to do is take a leak. Levi almost can’t stop the laugh that bubbles up.

And then the light turns on. Levi holds his breath futilely in an attempt to hide. His feet are still sticking out, so it’s useless really, but there’s some instinctual part of himself that tries to curl up, to hope no one sees him.

Beneath the stall door he sees two red and blue spider-man shoes that have lights in the heels. And why… why is there _a kid_ at a school _this fucking late_?

The shoes come clopping around the corner, little flashing lights hurting Levi’s eyes. They stop on the other side of the door, and then slowly—horror movie slowly—the plastic door begins to open. Levi doesn’t even have the strength to blow on the door let alone slam it closed like he wants.

A kid stands there, rubbing at his eyes with a yawn. Young, maybe five or six. Hell, maybe he’s four for all Levi knows about kids. He’s got an ugly little blonde bowl cut and big blue eyes that are just the same level as Levi’s from where he’s slumped against the wall.

For a long moment the two look at each other -one scowling, one still yawning- while Levi tries to slow his breathing and then the kid takes turns observing Levi’s dark clothes and bloody wall. Slowly, his eyes widen and he steps back quickly, drawing his hand to his chest like Levi is going to lunge over and bite him.

And then the kid turns and flees from the room. Levi lurches, before sagging back with a groan, his heart thumping as he opens his mouth to protest, to try and get the kid to _stop_ —but he’s already out the door, leaving phantom flashing red and blue lights behind Levi’s eyes. The plastic stall door swings closed.

Just _great_.

He thinks about pulling himself to his feet, running again, but all that happens when he tries is a weak twitch of his fingers. So instead he closes his eyes and tries to ignore the coldness seeping into his bones from the tile floor. And he thinks… he still can’t remember the name of the man he saved. He thinks he probably should; the man knew who he was. Smiled at him before Levi slammed him against a wall and put a gun in his face. And he looked familiar. Blue eyes, strong jaw.

He looked _good_. If Levi has to die, he supposes saving some Adonis is a good way to go.

For a long time the room is utterly quiet, still, and Levi thinks maybe he’ll just stay there alone until his heart stops, dreaming about a rugged stranger. And then footsteps echo into the room. _Well_.

The brown loafers that come into view are certainly not children’s, and the boy isn’t with him. He can tell the moment the man sees his feet, because he pauses halfway. Levi pictures some middle-aged baldy dialing the police on his phone. For a long moment, the stranger doesn’t move.

Slowly, the door creaks open. Light hits Levi squarely in the eyeball and he hisses, trying to see the man standing above him. The silhouette is big—bigger than he expected to find in an elementary school. Broad shoulders, tapered waist, body like a Dorito chip, perfectly proportional and muscled. God, maybe it’s an angel—maybe he’s finally fucking dead and this is his own hallucination come to take him to him afterlife—

A deep voice says, “Oh my _god,_ Levi?”

The man drops to his knees beside him and Levi squints at the face materializing through the fog in his head. Familiar. Blue eyes. Strong jaw. Stubble that could sand a piece of wood. And _god_ —those eyebrows, perfectly shaped and strong and furrowed in concern.

The man he saved.

Levi swallows and chokes on the metallic taste in his mouth, as finally _, finally_ , the name he’s been searching for since he was shot comes back to him. “ _Smith_?”


	2. Erwin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look into Erwin's side of things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2! It's slow going, but more chapters are coming (hopefully soon). Let me know what you think :)

The route Levi takes to unconsciousness is less of a slide and more of a tumble. It’s vaguely reminiscent of being a kid again and rolling down a hill, elbows out. At first, it’s reassuring, the reel of sky and grass, exhilarating. And then the speed picks up and he can barely breathe, is trying to claw at the ground to hold himself up.

He’s dimly aware of Smith trying to lift him. He can feel bony hips under his thighs and a shoulder under his chin, and an arm the approximate size of a tree trunk wrapped around his back.

“Levi?” says the man, “Levi, I need you to hold on. Can you do that for me? Can you—”

“Shut the fuck up, Smith,” hisses Levi around a groan. He squeezes an arm weakly around the man’s neck. “Shit, we should stop meeting— ah, like this.” His eyes keep sliding shut and it’s all he can do against the waves of pain that seep over him. It’s bad enough that he almost wishes the man left him to die in a kid’s bathroom.

Almost.

And for how messed up this whole situation is, the man chuffs something that sounds kind of like a laugh against the side of Levi’s head and jostles him tighter into his body.

When he lays Levi down in something dark and vaguely box shaped—Jesus, is he in a car?—Smith pauses to place a hand on his shoulder. “Levi, can you hear me?”

Levi groans, his side giving an involuntary twitch that reduces his lungs to cinder.

“Okay, okay,” says Smith, “I’m going to take you to the hospital. Just—just wait here.” Like Levi can even move at this point. The door thumps shut behind him and he can blurrily make out the image of Erwin running back towards the school.

Levi closes his eyes.

When he opens them again the light above him is on and Smith is back. He’s strapping something—or someone into the seat in front of Levi. That kid. The little blonde thing peers large eyes at Levi around the head rest. Levi chokes on his spit and coughs up a glob of something pink-colored. The boy looks away hurriedly.

The engine rumbles underneath him and Levi almost pukes as the world tilts on its axis. “Nearest hospital, nearest hospital…” the man in the front is muttering to himself.

And it’s those words that rip Levi into consciousness, propel him like a comet into his own shaking body. “No!” he gasps. “No hospital!” He tries to sit up and slumps back with an agonized grunt.

When his body doesn’t turn up on the streets it’ll be the first place Kenny looks. And with how deep the man’s pocketbook goes, he probably already has an armada of doctors and nurses ready to prescribe the wrong medication whenever he wills it. As much as Levi needs sterile treatment, some clean stitches, maybe a blood bag or two, if he goes to the hospital he’ll end up getting an extra dose of arsenic in an IV.

The brakes screech and Smith turns to peer into the back, blue yes glinting even through the haze of Levi’s fucked up vision. “What do you mean, no hospital? You’re bleeding out, Levi!”

But already the fight is fading from Levi and his head drops against the seat once more, the rocking of the Earth underneath him enough to keep him still. “N-no hospital,” he slurs, so quietly he’s not sure Smith hears him.

But the man curses and starts driving again.

Levi doesn’t know how long he lays there, the breath crackling in and out of his lungs. Each blink seems to extend into years, eons, before he pries his eyelids open and the world is washed in flashes from streetlamps and two sets of wide blue eyes.

After a particularly brutal bump that leaves him coughing, a small head pokes around the seat again. “Are you okay?” asks the little boy, even though his voice trembles so hard he sounds like he’s going to piss himself.

“Armin, don’t talk to him,” says Smith from the front. It seems that for all Erwin wants to help Levi, he isn’t thrilled by the prospect of his little tyke doing the same.

It figures really, that Smith is the first one to have kids. He probably has a wife or someone waiting for him at home, tapping her foot as she looks through the window for headlights: he’s exactly the kind of guy that would get to live the perfect American dream. Deserves it, really.

After several long seconds of staring, Levi realizes he hasn’t answered the kid’s question. It takes far more energy than it should to swallow and give a weak, tight-lipped nod. His eyes droop closed again, broken only by a wince as Smith takes a sharp corner that seems to jostle every bone in his broken body.

Slowly, a little bundle of heat nudges its way into his fingers. Levi manages to open his eyes long enough to peer up.

The little boy—Armin—is holding his hand. His pudgy little digits are splayed over the width of Levi’s palm where his skin is caked with drying blood and dirt, thumb hooked around the loose curl of his fingers.

It’s strange, seeing the soft flesh there right next to his mess of gore and scars.

Levi normally wouldn’t tolerate it. But his fingers are so cold and he can feel himself shaking and—and he’s _dying_. He’ll be dead in the next half hour if something amazing doesn’t happen.

So he closes his eyes and squeezes the little hand in his own.

 

He’s being moved again. A car door slams, followed by, “Stay there, Armin! Don’t get out of the car.”

He doesn’t like the feeling of being carried. It brings back memories of Kuchel, fussing over him, pulling him into her arms so she could tickle his stomach and kiss his cheeks. He still remembers the first time they realized that he was too big, and she too weak.

There’s banging; a fist to wood.

 _Thanks for the delivery, Erwin,_ someone says, _but I don’t remember ordering a dead body with my chow mein._

 _Please—he’s dying. And he doesn’t want the hospital._ That’s Smith. Ever the hero, trying to save anyone he can.

He can remember… he remembers…

Nothing.

Nothing worth thinking about.

 

 

_Oh. Oh shit. Armin—I left Armin on the couch._

_Don’t worry. Moblit has your little offspring. No doubt making macaroni by now. Any excuse, I swear, and the man starts a fucking pot of Kraft—_

_Will he be okay?_

_Your lovely sleeping beauty or your brat? Or my brat?_

_His name is Levi._

_Really? I didn’t realize you renamed him when you adopted him._

_Funny, H. Really. But pl—_

_It’s… hard to say. I don’t think it’s wise to put a number on something like this. You see this spot, right here… and don’t tell me you haven’t seen them._

_Them?_

_The flowers, Erwin. Don’t play dumb. You know what they mean._

_Yeah… Yeah. I do. I just…_

_I don’t know…_

_ Two Weeks Earlier: Erwin _

Nanaba kidnaps Armin. That’s the only way to really explain the haste with which she bundles him into his coat and then ushers him out of the classroom. The little boy doesn’t seem to mind; it’s one of—what Erwin thinks of as his best qualities—the few traits that the two share. They are unflappable, calm and unerring in the face of danger.

Or in Armin’s case, an afternoon full of fussing, puzzles, and food that is questionable in both taste and quantity. Nanaba, for her instincts as a self-described “nester”, still can barely boil a pot of water without a trip to the emergency room.

Erwin tucked plenty of pizza money into the extra pocket of Armin’s coat and told him it was for a premeditated emergency.

“Go do your chores,” Nanaba had said the day before, reaching over their tables to snag a baby carrot from his tray while he was too busy adjusting his straps. “He’ll be fine for an evening you know.”

Erwin sighed.

“Oh,” she continued, “And don’t even tell me you don’t need anything. I’ve seen your class, I’ve been to your house. You need snack food. And some real little kid toys for Armin. Crossword puzzles? You’ve got to be kidding.”

Erwin furrows his brow in a way that is only semi intentional. “He likes them.”

“Yeah. I’m sure he does. But you know what else he likes? Dogs. Cats, more likely. Maybe a toy truck.”

“Armin is allergic.”

“So what? All kids are allergic to something. You’ve just got to be willing to figure out how much you’ll risk for him to actually have a life.”

And as much as it irks Erwin to be beaten at his own game—how is it that all of his childless friends end up giving parenting advice anyways?—he can admit when he needs to loosen up. Armin is an academic. A blind person could see it. Yet he’s also a little boy. He might not like the dirt, and he might prefer Mozart to some of the curse-riddled garbage kids listen to nowadays, but he also looks eagerly at every pet he’s ever met and glances at the sports section whenever they go by.

Which is why, once he finishes his grading for the evening, Erwin finds himself pulling up along the strip mall a few miles away from the school. He doesn’t think getting a pet right off the bat is such a good idea. Not without first getting Armin on an antihistamine that will help with the sneezing incurred when a single hair so much as brushes him. But looking won’t kill anyone. And as for t-ball… all the kids have started preparing for their tryouts and Erwin has even seen a few kids with shiners from a messy game of catch. One of Armin’s friends has been jabbering nonstop, and it could be good for the boy to get a little rougher, learn to use his physical side.

But, per Erwin’s usual customs, work must come before play.

He shops for groceries quickly: he really was missing his normal junk food and he makes up for the lack by putting an extra three boxes of pizza rolls into his cart. Of course, shopping always goes much smoother when he actually has money to pay for things.

Erwin apologizes as he has to scrounge his wallet and jacket pocket for change, thinks about mentioning how his son has the rest for pizza.

Is it too early to call Armin son?

A woman behind him continues to sigh even as the employee hands him his change—34 cents—and makes a big show of checking her watch. Erwin flashes his arm, just for her benefit, and takes a small bit of satisfaction at the surprised guilt on her face.

The usual bagger follows him to his car and they load everything quickly. But when he turns back on the car it’s to a red light on his gas gauge. He looks at the clock: Nanaba has Armin until 7:30 PM and he still has three hours to kill before he’ll have to make the drive to her city apartment. Erwin sighs and puts the car into drive.

When he pulls into the bank there’s only one spot left. It’s a Friday afternoon, and really Erwin should’ve guessed it would be so busy but just like so many other things it seems to have slipped his mind.

There’s a group of men in a dark car smoking, and Erwin glances at them as he enters the building. The guy in the passenger seat looks familiar enough that Erwin smiles, but all the man does in return is scowl, blow a thin stream of smoke, and flick ash onto the sidewalk. Erwin keeps walking.

Inside the AC is going full blast, a small mercy now that the spring has fully settled in. Erwin tries to ignore the sweat pooling in his armpits but he can feel it wetting the strap of prosthetic and the material is chaffing. He glances once at the line of people before diverting for the bathroom. The room is empty and smells like lemon soap, and is even cooler than the rest of the bank. Erwin heads straight to the handicapped stall, closing it and fumbling for the buttons on his shirt.

Learning to do his buttons was one of the most trivial and hopeless tasks Erwin learned after the accident. It took him far too long to master, and with each successive failure he felt like giving up entirely.

 Now, with Armin to care for and friends who wouldn’t let him quit, he feels foolish for ever having behaved so melodramatically. Some days he still gets to work and realizes that his buttons have been mismatched, but now he just leaves it and explains to his children that it’s okay not to be perfect.

He’s just gotten his overshirt unbuttoned when the outer door opens and closes, and hurried footsteps come into the room, bouncing off the tiles. They make their way to the end of the row, right outside Erwin’s door and he watches, uneasy, smelling the nicotine and below it something spicy and peppery.

“It’s occupied,” he says when a firm knock rattles the plastic. There’s a _whole row_ of open cubicles. He turns back to his shirt, reaching to untuck the white tank top from his waist band.

And then suddenly the door slams inwards from behind him. Erwin jumps and turns, but before he makes it more than a quarter of the way someone is grabbing his collar and slamming him into the wall. Erwin gasps, heart thump-thumping in his chest and his stomach lurching. The small of his back is sweaty and cold where it presses to tile.

It’s the man. The one from the car. He’s shorter than Erwin thought, but strong and muscled, like his body is designed for throwing people into walls. And he still looks familiar. So devastatingly familiar that Erwin can almost taste it. From the grey of his eyes to the black, angular slice of his hair. He looks like a memory. A ghost.

He looks like he’s going to kick Erwin’s ass if he doesn’t get some answers.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” the man snarls, and his voice is gravelly and deep, flavored with the cigarettes, and it’s that sound that does it.

“Levi?” Erwin gapes. “Levi Ackerman? What are you—”

“Shut the fuck up!” A sound echoes in from the hallway and Levi tenses, turning wary eyes to the door before relaxing when the sound dissipates. He looks back, tightening his grip on Erwin’s tank top. “You need to leave. _Now_.”

“Levi, I can’t just—” Erwin protests, but the shorter man starts dragging him towards the exit. “Levi! What’s going on!”

The man doesn’t reply. He presses his ear to the door before opening it cautiously and looking into the empty hallways. As soon as they’re through the door, Erwin rips himself backwards, out of the vice grip. Levi’s face turns absolutely livid. “Listen,” he growls, “You’ve got to get the fuck out of here. Right fucking _now_ , Smith.”

And Erwin stares at him and stares at him and then _actually_ looks. There’s something in Levi’s waistband. Something metallic and heavy. Oh. Oh _fuck_. He starts backing away, jumping like he’s been electrocuted when Levi reaches for him again, this time around his wrist. The man’s skin is burning hot, like a brand, clenching too tight.

“Okay, okay,” says Erwin. “Let me just.” He tries to pull his hand out of Levi’s grip, to reach for his car keys, to think, or grab his phone, but the man stops him.

“Leave everything. Just _go_.” He gives Erwin a shove down the hallway—away from the entrance and towards a glowing EXIT sign. Erwin stumbles, the strangeness of it all almost enough to make him hesitate. And then a shadow passes by the hallway and shouting starts up in the main room. There’s a loud pop and someone screams. “Shit,” Levi curses, and turns to place his hands flat on Erwin’s chest and push him back.

“Just fucking run, Smith!” he snarls and then reaches for the gun in his waistband, disappearing down the hall.

Erwin runs for the exit, already dialing the police.


End file.
